{"id":1303,"date":"2024-05-01T15:54:40","date_gmt":"2024-05-01T20:54:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/?p=1303"},"modified":"2024-05-01T15:54:40","modified_gmt":"2024-05-01T20:54:40","slug":"jack-denny-and-his-orchestra-1926","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/2024\/05\/01\/jack-denny-and-his-orchestra-1926\/","title":{"rendered":"Jack Denny And His Orchestra – 1926"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Brunswick<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Song Of Shanghai”
\nJack Denny And His Orchestra
\n(Brunswick 3400-B)\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0December 15, 1926<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One of the cultural fads in the West during the 1910s and 1920s was a fascination with things perceived as foreign and exotic, especially with regard to ancient and traditional cultures of the Middle East and Asia.\u00a0 This had a big influence on the era’s architecture, design, and fashion.<\/p>\n

In the world of popular music,\u00a0 Tin Pan Alley music publishers happily fed and further fueled the fad with countless “Oriental fox trot” and “Indian intermezzo” compositions. Probably the best-remembered song of this genre is the 1921 hit “The Shiek of Araby,” which was written in response to the enormous success of the Rudolf Valentino<\/a> film The Sh<\/em>eik.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

“Song of Shanghai” is a 1926 composition by Raymond B Egan<\/a>, Vincent Rose<\/a>, and Richard A. Whiting<\/a>.\u00a0 Other recordings of it besides Jack Denny’s were made by the Ben Selvin<\/a> Orchestra (as the Radiolites), Ernie Golden’s Hotel McAlpin<\/a> Orchestra (as the WMCA Broadcasters), and the Duke Yellman Orchestra.<\/p>\n

American-born Jack Denny’s<\/a> band was based out of Canada during the 1920s and became known to American audiences through radio broadcasts from Montreal’s Mount Royal Hotel<\/a> over CBS<\/a>. In 1931, the band relocated to New York City to accept a high-profile job as the resident house band at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel<\/a>.\u00a0 During this period, the band had a unique sound as it included no brass instruments.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for Denny, jealousy got the best of him and resulted in a career setback.\u00a0 When the hotel brought in Xavier Cugat’s<\/a> rumba band as an opening act, the audience’s response to its hot Latin rhythms was so enthusiastic that Denny delivered an ultimatum to hotel management: they must get rid of Cugat or else he would quit.\u00a0 Management took him up on his offer to quit, and the Xavier Cugat Orchestra became the Waldorf-Astoria’s house band for the next sixteen years.<\/p>\n

The recording on the flip side of this record, also by Jack Denny’s band, “I Love The Moonlight,” has been in Radio Dismuke’s playlist for quite a while.\u00a0 I am not sure how and why I somehow omitted “Song of Shanghai,” as I think it is the most interesting and unusual of the two. It is a rather pretty song, and Denny’s version sounds more like something one would expect to hear from a popular concert orchestra rather than a typical 1926 dance band.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  “Song Of Shanghai” Jack Denny And His Orchestra (Brunswick 3400-B)\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0December 15, 1926   One of the cultural fads in the West during … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1304,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":93,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1303"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1309,"href":"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1303\/revisions\/1309"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.early1900s.org\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}